By Staff
Friday, May 7, 2021 12:27 AM
NEW YORK—Women’s influence in optical is undeniable and today, more women than ever before are playing vital roles at all levels of our industry. In retailing, wholesaling, product design, manufacturing, distribution and vision care and managed care, talented women are shaping the direction of the companies and organizations they work for, and, in many cases, lead. This is why
Vision Monday will once again be highlighting The Most Influential Women in Optical in our July issue, marking the 19th anniversary of our signature Special Report saluting women in the eyewear/eyecare industry. We are currently seeking nominations via an
electronic survey form.
By Staff
Friday, March 5, 2021 8:30 AM
NEW YORK—
Vontélle Eyewear was born, at least partially, out of coincidence, when friends
Tracy Vontélle Green and Nancey Harris both lost expensive pairs of eyewear within the same year. While shopping for replacement frames, both women found that they couldn’t find exactly what they wanted, and, so in 2019, Vontélle was born. Vontélle focuses on designs featuring textiles, patterns and colors from the African diaspora. Since the onset of the pandemic, Green and Harris have also been producing masks in the same patterns as their eyewear, and have coined the phrase #FullFaceFashion to describe what they do.
By Staff
Friday, March 5, 2021 8:20 AM
NEW YORK—This year, March is Workplace Eye and Wellness Month at
Prevent Blindness. The goal of
Workplace Eye Wellness Month is to raise awareness of potential damage to the eyes at work—this year, due to the ongoing pandemic and thus the increase in digital screen time for many remote workers, Prevent Blindness is emphasizing the dangers of digital eye strain. So far this month, many ECPs have taken to social media to share the message. Here’s a look at some of the ways ECPs across the country are doing just that—feel free to get inspired.
By Staff
Friday, May 8, 2020 12:55 PM
NEW YORK—Although people around the world are spending more time at home than usual, many communities are coming together online to find ways they can help from a distance—and the optical community is no different. While opticians and optometrists are busy providing emergency appointments, many have taken to social media to share helpful information where they can in their free time. In addition to physical and mental health tips, many members of the optical community are coming together online to discuss masks—where to get them, how to make them, and tips and tricks for wearing them comfortably. Here, we take a look at how the community is getting masked. At left, Cheryl Murphy, OD, of Northport, New York, used YouTube to learn how to make masks after closing her practice temporarily due to the pandemic.
By Gwendolyn Plummer
Friday, April 17, 2020 2:15 PM
NEW YORK—From “heroes” to “life-savers” to “trusted confidants,” there are plenty of words that come to mind when we think about doctors, especially right now. But what about “funny?” On Thursday,
WebMD and
Medscape joined forces with Daily Show alumnus and star of The Unicorn, Rob Corddry, to host
“Funny You Should Mask,” a “fun-raiser” to help get PPE to frontline medical workers across the country. The event, hosted live on Facebook, combined humor and medicine to underscore why it’s so vital to get PPE to medical professionals, and what we can do to help them.
By Staff
Friday, March 20, 2020 12:27 PM
NEW YORK—Many of us are spending more time on social media these days, which has a fair amount of both upsides and downsides. Social media can be a negative place even at the best of times, so it’s no surprise that there are some corners of the internet that naturally feel pretty doom and gloom right now—but it doesn’t all have to be that way. In tough times, social media can also allow us to connect with one another, reminisce about good times, plan for the future and bond over the things we love. That’s exactly what Silmo Paris is doing with the #EyewearChallenge, which the show started as a way to spread some fun and bonding while many of us are online. Here’s a look at how it’s been taking over the industry on Instagram.
By Staff
Friday, March 20, 2020 12:24 PM
NEW YORK—Last week (March 8—14, 2020) was World Glaucoma Week. A global initiative headed up by the World Glaucoma Association (WGA) and the World Glaucoma Patient Committee (WGP), World Glaucoma Week aims to raise awareness around glaucoma, who it can affect and how it can affect them. Although many of us in the industry feel well educated about glaucoma, that doesn’t mean our neighbors and patients feel the same way—and with more than 3.2 million Americans ages 40 and over affected by glaucoma according to
Prevent Blindness, there can never be too much information about the sneak thief of sight.
By Gwendolyn Plummer
Friday, March 13, 2020 12:32 PM
NEW YORK—Let’s be honest: standing at the sink and washing your hands for 20 seconds can get boring pretty fast. Expert advice has told us to sing Happy Birthday twice in a row to ensure we’re hitting the full 20 second mark and protecting ourselves from COVID-19 as best as possible, but Happy Birthday can be sung in a few different tempos, which makes that advice a little confusing. On top of all that, the song can turn into an earworm pretty quickly—and, potentially, ruin all future birthdays by making us think back on this scary, uncertain time.
By Staff
Friday, February 21, 2020 1:41 PM
NEW YORK—If you were on social media at all last month, you’ve probably noticed the Dolly Parton Challenge taking over your feed. The meme challenge—in which users share four different pictures of themselves to represent their different personalities on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn—kicked off when the country star shared her own interpretation of it, and it took the internet by storm. Actors, musicians, athletes and other public figures all across the world have been sharing their own Dolly Parton Challenges, but the fun doesn’t stop there: the optical industry has also taken the challenge. Here’s a look at a handful of Dolly Parton Challenges from independents that prove just how many sides there are to independents—and just how much you can change up your look by swapping out your eyewear.
By Staff
Friday, February 7, 2020 11:27 AM
NEW YORK—January 25, 2020 marked the beginning of a new year on the traditional Chinese calendar, which also signals the beginning of a Lunar New Year. In 2020, we’re celebrating the Year of the Rat. The rat is the first of the zodiac animals, and can represent the beginning of a day, wealth and surplus, according to
chinesenewyear.net. For millions of people around the world, Chinese and Lunar New Year mark a time to come together with family, friends and loved ones to wish the old year goodbye and celebrate the dawn of a new one. This year, many independents also shared New Year wishes on their social media accounts.
By By Miki Lyn Zilnicki, OD, FCOVD,
and Jessica Fulmer, OD, FAAO, FCOVD
Friday, January 17, 2020 10:22 AM
Social media is where many, if not most, of your patients spend vast amounts of personal time. You can leverage posts to sites like Facebook and Instagram to market to them where they already are, rather than hoping they open promotional e-mails or postal mail messages. Here’s how our practice, which has a vision therapy focus, and no optical retail business, uses social media to communicate with current, and prospective, patients.
By Mary Kane
Thursday, December 26, 2019 3:46 PM
Vision Monday started the Voices + Views department in
VMAIL Weekend back in January of 2018. Voices + Views was originally conceived as a way for
VM to cover ECPs who had a social media presence on blogs, vlogs and Instagram platforms. At the time, most of the V+V features were written by our associate editor Stephanie Sengwe. Stephanie left us in May of 2018 when she returned to graduate school to pursue a film career. However, she continued to write the Voices + Views features for us on a contributing editor basis, and we’re very happy she did. Through the years, Stephanie wrote over 50 ECP profiles for us in the
Weekend Edition. Here are a few of her most popular V+V stories.
By Stephanie Sengwe
Friday, November 1, 2019 11:25 AM
Jennifer Wademan’s Instagram page is a carefully curated platform that is indicative of its purpose—to be a creative, yet educational and an informative outlet. While it mostly showcases Wademan’s life as an optometrist, the page also features glances into her private life as a mother and a wife. Dr. Wademan is a bonafide veteran of the optometry field, with 11 years of professional experience.
By Stephanie Sengwe
Friday, October 18, 2019 8:00 AM
For Dr. Jenine Esmail, patient education is often lacking in the people she interacts with. Often times, when people come into her exam room, they lack basic information about their eyes. For this reason, she has dedicated her Instagram page,
DrJenineEsmail, to filling in those blanks. “One thing that I notice with most of my patients is that they have never actually received proper patient education, which is something I spend time on with each patient during their exam. The more they understand, the more we can prevent diseases and treat them correctly,” she told
VMail Weekend.